Bunting highlights e-waste metal separation at E-Waste World Conference and Expo
At the E-Waste World Conference and Expo, Bunting will focus on metal separation and recovery from e-waste. The event will take place from June 26 to 27 in Frankfurt, Germany. The Bunting team is joined on the stand by their local representative Marcel Graef from 3SMI.
Global e-waste production rose to 62 million tonnes in 2022, up 82 percent from 2010 (Unitar). Estimates indicate that e-waste will rise to 82 million tonnes by 2030. At present, e-waste recycling meets only one percent of rare earth element demand.
Recovering the valuable metals present in e-waste is challenging, involving liberation, sizing, and separation. Bunting's separation equipment recovers ferrous and non-ferrous metals at various stages in the e-waste recycling process.
High-intensity magnetic separators recover small and weakly magnetic metals including fragmented stainless steel. The remaining non-magnetic fraction passes over an eddy current separator, which recovers the non-ferrous metals such as aluminum and zinc. The concentric and eccentric magnetic rotor designs of the eddy current separator enable the recovery of non-ferrous metals down to three millimetres in size.
One of the final processes uses an electrostatic separator to recover finer metallic particles. Separation occurs by inducing an electrostatic charge into a conductive dry-liberated particle.
The location of a metal separator within an e-waste recycling process depends on the flowsheet, the feed material, and the separation objective. Bunting's applications engineers work with e-waste recyclers to understand their process and recommend the ideal separator solution.
E-waste recyclers also use Bunting's testing facility to assess metal separation capabilities and process materials on a wide range of equipment.
"There is a drive to increase e-waste recycling which is only possible if there are recognized processes and equipment," said Bradley Greenwood, Bunting's European sales manager. "The E-Waste World Conference and Expo provides the ideal opportunity to discuss the challenges facing e-waste recyclers and identify separation technology to enable valuable metal recovery."
